The Jean and Alexander Heard Library
Heard Library Web Environment
HTML Guidelines

Ensure that your pages are technically correct

Check all links when creating the document and review the document periodically to ensure that all links continue to be valid. Library Technology will periodically run a link checking utility on all files on Public and StaffWeb servers and notify staff of broken links that are found on their pages. Library staff should repair broken links promptly once notified.

Relative versus Absolute Links.

  • A relative link references a document without fully specifying its URL. The coding of the link depends on the location of the document linked, in relation to the current page. To reference another document that resides within the same directory, simply use its filename.
    Example (when the linked file is within the same directory on the same server):
    <a href="linkedpage.html">A relative Link</a>
    Example (when the linked file is in another directory on the same server:
    <a href="/otherdirctory/linkedpage.html">A relative Link</a>
    Please use relative links for all links that refer to pages that reside on the same server. This practice will ensure that the links in your Web pages will be portable should they ever need to be moved to another server or to another directory within a server, or should the name of a Web server ever change.

  • An absolute link references another Web page by fully specifying its URL, including the server on which it resides. Use this form especially when linking to a document on another Web server. Example:
    <a href="http://www.anotherserver.edu/directory/newpage.html"> An Absolute Link</a>
    Use absolute links only for pages that reside on other Web servers.

    Default Pages in Web Directories

    The default page is the one that displays in a browser when the user does not specify an HTML file as part of the URL. The use of default pages makes it easier for users, since they only have to enter a directory name to get to the main page of a Web server or the main page within a subfolder. For both the StaffWeb and the Public Web, the default file name within any directory should be index.html.

    For example, when a user enters the URL http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/, a file called http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/index.htm displays.
    When a user enters http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech the file http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/index.htm displays.

    The use of default pages will make it easier for the users of our Web servers to find resources.

    HTML Coding Standards

    In general, don't assume that if the page looks right on your browser that it will look correct with others. Browsers vary considerably in the ways that they forgive errors in HTML coding or interpret ambiguous coding. To ensure a consistent look to your pages, it is important to follow correct coding practices.

    The applications that generate HTML from a graphical environment such as Microsoft FrontPage do not always generate correct HTML, or they may introduce extraneous coding that may not always function as intended. It is a good practice to examine the HTML generated by these applictions and check that the code is correct. Especially for pages that will operate from the public Web server, it is a good practice to test the pages with both Netscape's and Microsoft's browsers.

  • Begin all documents with:
    <! DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
  • The second line should always be: <html>
    and the document must end with </html>

  • Assign a Title to each page. Example:
    <title>Heard Library Staff Resources </title>

  • All pages should have a <body> and a </body>

  • If you begin a list with a <ul> end it with a </ul>

  • If you begin a list with a <ol> end it with a </ol>

  • In general, most tags that are opened, must also be closed.

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    Last Updated February 26, 1999.